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Tue, 26 Sep 2017 14:09:23 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.2The Soviets Intervened in Afghanistan Knowing It Was Stupidhttps://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/soviets-intervened-afghanistan-knowing-full-well-stupid-thing/
https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/soviets-intervened-afghanistan-knowing-full-well-stupid-thing/#commentsMon, 25 Sep 2017 11:35:01 +0000https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/?p=12248The Soviets Intervened in Afghanistan Knowing It Was Stupid was first posted on September 25, 2017 at 6:35 am.]]>In March 1979 Afghanistan’s new Communist government begged the Soviet Union to come to its aid in crushing a rebellion in its Herat province.

The Soviet politburo sat down in Moscow, and in a four-day debate, listed all the reasons why this was an extremely bad idea, and roundly rejected it.

Then in December the very same politburo which in early 1979 explained so well why a direct military intervention in Afghanistan was such a stupid idea now approved it.

In March the Soviet leadership felt an intervention in Afghanistan would mean they would become involved in fighting the Afghan people, they wouldn’t be able to explain the intervention to Soviet citizens, and it would cause greater tension with the US and the western world.

In December 1979 they still believed all these things but now they intervened anyway.

They were right to think it was a bad idea. Going in they hoped they could withdraw again within a year at most. As it was they stayed for ten years, dreaming of withdrawal every day.

In effect, the reluctance of the Soviet leadership in 1979 to write off increasingly dysfunctional Afghanistan as a lost cause, transformed a short-term embarrassment into a decade-long agony.

In the end, the Soviets successfully shored-up the pro-Soviet government in Kabul to the point where they could withdraw in early 1989 and not have it collapse immediately. But given the Soviet treasure and Afghan lives this modest accomplishment took it could hardly be called a success, much less a victory.

Ironically, the main reason why the Soviets went into Afghanistan was because they felt the Afghan Communist government was too radical, too brutal, too murderous, in short too communistic. It reminded the relatively mellow dinosaurs in the Kremlin of Stalin and Pol Pot. It was giving Communism a bad name. So the USSR invaded, decapitated it, and took over that task for itself.

Contrary to Cold War propaganda in the west the Soviets did not initially move in to bring Communism to Afghanistan, but on the contrary — to limit its excesses.

Throughout the 1970s Moscow advised the Afghan Communists to back the existing modernizing government in Kabul. And when the Afghan Communists took power for themselves anyway the Soviets advised them to move as cautiously as possible in implementing socialism.

The shrewd and ambitious Afghan political operator Hafizullah Amin, who kept a portrait of Stalin on his desk, rebuked their advice and maneuvered himself into leadership position over the bodies of his political enemies. Now the outlook of the regime in Kabul fully reflected his own:

In their fanaticism, and in their belief that a deeply conservativeand proudly independent country could be forced into modernity atthe point of a gun, the Afghan Communists resembled the Pol Potregime. Unlike in Cambodia, however, in Afghanistan the people were
not prepared to be treated in this way by their government.

In the most immediate sense the Soviet invasion was directed against Amin, who was deposed and killedfor being too much of a Communist. According to the Soviets this meant the country would either be devastated by Amin’s atrocities, or even more likely, he would soon fall, embarassingly making for the first Communist regime to be toppled by a popular revolution.

The Soviets needed one day to take over the country. 9 years, 3 months and 3 weeks to leave it.

Another reason the Soviets moved in is that they feared if they did not, the Americans would. That would have undoubtedly happened but then so what? Impassable, landlocked and poor, a more strategically irrelevant place than Afghanistan would be hard to imagine. Yet the map gazers in Moscow as much as the ones in DC somehow convinced themselves this was somehow a key piece of the “grand chessboard”.

Aside from its border with the Central Asian Soviet republics the country was completely irrelevant to anything and everything. And even some kind of pro-American presence on the Soviet southern border would have scarcely been an existential threat. Until 1979 the Americans were firmly lodged in Iran — a much more relevant Soviet neighbor to the south, yet the USSR managed just fine.

As it was, the Communist Afghanistan ironically outlived the Soviet Union and the entire Eastern Bloc. It was not toppled until the spring of 1992 having fought a valiant battle in the last nine months of the civil war completely on its own, as Yeltsin obliged Washington by cutting off aid to Kabul even as US, Pakistan and the Saudis continued to supply the Mujahedeen.

In other words, when the dust had cleared the Soviet Communists had retained Kabul and lost Moscow.

The Soviets Intervened in Afghanistan Knowing It Was Stupid was first posted on September 25, 2017 at 6:35 am.]]>https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/soviets-intervened-afghanistan-knowing-full-well-stupid-thing/feed/1If the Majority Votes to Secede — What About the Minority?https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/majority-votes-secede-minority/
https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/majority-votes-secede-minority/#commentsMon, 25 Sep 2017 10:42:14 +0000https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/?p=12244If the Majority Votes to Secede — What About the Minority? was first posted on September 25, 2017 at 5:42 am.]]>In recent years, left-wing groups have often been the driving force behind secession movements. This has been the case in Scotland, in Catalonia, and in California.

In each case, the secession movements have been initiated in part to forward left-wing goals, such as the creation of a larger welfare state or to escape limitations imposed by political interest groups and institutions deemed to be too right-wing.

Within the American context, the loudest calls for secession right now are coming from California where leftists are eager to assert their independence from the Trump administration in Washington.

This case presents Americans — and especially libertarian-minded Americans — with a question that continues to come up in recent years on secession matters: should they support a left-wing secession movement?

Is it right or moral to support a secession movement that, in the short- and medium- terms is almost guaranteed to adopt policies that are counter to the cause of freedom and free markets?

The answer must first and foremost be compared against the reality of forcing political union on a separatist region. That is, the cost of allowing a region to separate must be compared to the cost of keeping it in — i.e., military invasion, occupation, mass arrests, government surveillance, martial law, and worse.

Not surprisingly, we’re forced to conclude the answer is the same whether we’re talking about secession in Scotland, in California, or in Catalonia: the answer is yes.

What About the Minority Interests?

Often, the immediate retort to this position is to point to those groups in the minority who are left stuck in the seceding territories.

The argument goes something like this: “Now that you’ve cut California loose, what about those poor conservatives, gun owners, and business owners who will now be negatively impacted by a newly empowered California government? Before, California was at least somewhat restrained by its membership in the United States. Now the California government is even more free to inflict misery on the hapless taxpayers and productive people who are stuck there.”

To this criticism, there are at least two responses.

One: California Independence Means More Freedom for the Rest of the Country

Those who wish to focus on merely what happens to those who are in California take a parochial and far-too-limited view. Yes, it’s true that business owners, religious Christians, and gun owners in California (to name just three groups) would likely be negatively impacted by California independence. The California government has long illustrated an open hostility to these minority groups.

The other side of the coin, however, is that California secession would lead to a significant expansion of freedom for the “rump” United States left behind. Freed of the influence of California on American politics, the remainder of the United States would likely move significantly in the direction of morefreedom in markets. Federal regulations would likely be scaled back, and presidential candidates would no longer need to cater to interest groups with sizable memberships in California.

California’s 53-member delegation in Congress (39 of them Democrats) would be gone, and voting patterns in Congress would likely shift in a direction more hospitable to freedom and free markets.

In other words, the nation would be freed from a great weight tied around its neck. One might even say the situation is analagous to the removal of an infected appendage. It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing had happened. In 1861, when Southern States began seceding from the Union, New Yorker George Templeton Strong welcomed the prospect of being freed from the political influence of the slave drivers down south. He concluded “the self-amputated members were diseased beyond immediate cure, and their virus will infect our system no longer.”

But, unlike Strong who might have been induced by conscience to think of the slaves left behind in the seceding territories, we face no similar scruples. Obviously, comparing modern California to a slave state of old is laughably inappropriate, and unlike the slaves, Californians are free to move away. Nor is it the moral obligation of Texans, or Floridians, or Coloradans to protect the Californians from the excesses of their own government.

Thus, when we think of post-secession California subject to the whims of a hard-left government there, we must also think of the 285 million remaining Americans who would benefit from the separation.

Note also that this situation even has advantages for the taxpayers and business owners in California who wish to escape the California regime.

Now that the rump United States has been improved by California’s absence, those in California who seek a more business-friendly legal environment can dramatically change their fortunes for the better by moving across the new national boundary to Arizona or Nevada. For these migrants, the net gain achieved by leaving California has grown larger thanks to California’s departure.

Two: More States are Preferable to Fewer States

The second response to the objection lies in the fact that secession already brings with it a solution to the problem. That is, the problems caused by one secession are solved by more secession.

As I’ve explained here, here, and here, a larger number of states is preferable to a smaller number. A larger number of small states provides more practical choices to taxpayers and citizens in choosing a place to live under a governments that more closely match their personal values.

Thus, in considering the problems of an independent California, we find that the primary problem faced by taxpayers and productive residents in California is that the state is simply too large and contains too diverse a population within its boundaries.

As noted by numerous commentators over the years — including supporters of the Six Californias initiative — California’s population is quite politically and culturally diverse, although it has been dominated for decades by a hard-left coalition of voters based around the Bay Area. Compared to these voters, Southern California residents appear downright centrist, but one would not know this by looking at statewide politics because Northern California is so adept at throwing its weight around.

The solution to this, problem lies in breaking up California into still smaller pieces. We can see many of these political lines ripe for decentralization in the voting patterns revealed by statewide votes such as those for Propsition 187 and Proposition 8. We can see it in the map of legislative districts. Nor is this just a matter of metropolitan areas versus rural areas. Many suburban areas within the metroplexes of California are quite right-of-center in their own rights, and would surely benefit from further political decentralization.

The net result of all of this would be to offer a multitude of choices among taxpayers, entrepreneurs, gun owners, and moral traditionalists as to where they might live and enjoy the benefits of self-determination within their own communities.

But before any of this can happen, we must first establish and extend the moral and legal legitimacy of self-determination through secession and decentralization. Clinging to the status quo of existing regional and national boundaries is reactionary in the extreme. Insisting that no community ought to be allowed self government unless its leaders are hard-core libertarians is impractical, irresponsible, and doomed to failure.

Nevertheless, when confronted with new attempts at decentralization and secession, even some of those who claim to be for freedom and self-determination cling to ideas of imposing nationalistic control over others. They invent emotion-laden fictional slogans claiming “we are one nation” or “secession is treason” or other sayings designed to justify using the power of the state to impose political unity. Ultimately, this is an ideology of monopoly and coercion, and tramples the very ideals of freedom that the nationalists claim they hold dear.

If the Majority Votes to Secede — What About the Minority? was first posted on September 25, 2017 at 5:42 am.]]>https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/majority-votes-secede-minority/feed/1Overwhelming Resistance to Trump’s Plan to Scuttle the Iran Dealhttps://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/overwhelming-resistance-trumps-plan-scuttle-iran-deal/
https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/overwhelming-resistance-trumps-plan-scuttle-iran-deal/#commentsSat, 23 Sep 2017 12:32:14 +0000https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/?p=12218Overwhelming Resistance to Trump’s Plan to Scuttle the Iran Deal was first posted on September 23, 2017 at 7:32 am.]]>This has not been a good week for President Trump’s Iran policy. As the president has indicated, he plans in mid-October to decertify Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated and signed in 2015, which rolled back Iran’s nuclear program, placed severe restrictions on it for the foreseeable future, and imposed the world’s most intrusive inspections regime on what remained.

Leaving aside for now the various and profoundly negative ramifications of Trump’s stated intention to declare Iran in violation of the agreement, the most immediate problem for the president has always been that Iran is, in fact, not in violation of the deal. As attested to by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and all other signatories to the agreement – including Germany, France, the United Kingdom, China, and Russia – Iran is fully compliant with its obligations under the JCPOA.

But this week brought significant pushback to Trump’s plan. Following the president’s speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, world leaders and diplomats reportedly pressured the president and members of his administration in numerous meetings to reconsider his plan to scuttle the JCPOA. Allies publicly criticized him. “Renouncing [the Iran deal] would be a grave error, not respecting it would be irresponsible,” said the French president Emmanuel Macron, suggesting further that decertification could create another nuclear crisis like North Korea.

In a press conference following a meeting with representatives from every signatory country, Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union, said that if the United States walks out of the deal, Europe would make sure it remains in place anyways. She further indicated, “The international community cannot afford dismantling an agreement that is working and delivering…Iran is complying.”

Mogherini confirmed that all of the parties to the JCPOA, including the United States, agreed in the closed-door meeting that “there is no violation.” This prompted questions for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who had to sheepishly admit that “from a technical standpoint, the IAEA reports continue to indicate and confirm that Iran is in technical compliance of the agreement.”

Foreign Policy reported that the Trump administration’s ploy to use the threat of decertification to reopen negotiations on the JCPOA and squeeze more concessions out of Iran “collapsed on Wednesday as key European powers persevered in their effort to rescue the deal from an American walkout, and Iran’s president made clear his government wouldn’t revisit the terms of the pact.” The New York Times reported that Trump’s repudiation of the international consensus and his brash denunciation of the JCPOA was unintentionally generating global sympathy for Iran, while damaging U.S. credibility and trust.

Even members of Trump’s own party began to break ranks. On Tuesday, Rep. Ed Royce, Republican Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN that Trump should not withdraw from the Iran deal, but rather continue to “enforce the hell out of it.” Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who opposed the deal when it was signed in 2015, told reporters, “if [Iran is] complying with it, I think we should stay in it.”

Then, on Wednesday afternoon, the Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, General John Hyten, in a speech at the Hudson Institute, said, “The facts are that Iran is operating under the agreement that we signed up for under JCPOA… We have an agreement that our nation has signed and I believe that if the United States of America signs an agreement, it’s our job to live up to the terms of that agreement, it’s our job to enforce that.”

It’s not clear that this overwhelming resistance to decertification will dissuade President Trump. But the American people should know that if Trump goes through with it, he’ll be doing it in defiance of the facts, the international community, much of his own cabinet, and at least some prominent members of his own party.

This may soon become Congress’s responsibility. According to legislation passed subsequent to the signing of the JCPOA, that requires the president to certify Iranian compliance every 90-days, decertification triggers a 60-day clock for Congress to decide by majority vote whether to re-impose nuclear-related sanctions on Iran. A decision to do so and join President Trump in his misbegotten scheme to unravel the Iran deal would be dangerous and irresponsible.

Overwhelming Resistance to Trump’s Plan to Scuttle the Iran Deal was first posted on September 23, 2017 at 7:32 am.]]>https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/overwhelming-resistance-trumps-plan-scuttle-iran-deal/feed/1TGIF: Trump’s Americanized Fascismhttps://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/sheldon/tgif-trumps-americanized-fascism/
https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/sheldon/tgif-trumps-americanized-fascism/#respondFri, 22 Sep 2017 13:28:22 +0000https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/?p=12116TGIF: Trump’s Americanized Fascism was first posted on September 22, 2017 at 8:28 am.]]>Donald Trump delivered a depraved address to the UN General Assembly this week. It might not have been a new low for Trump, but that’s only because he went into the UN at an appallingly low level.

The address had some obviously egregious parts, most especially Trump’s vow that if “the United States … is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” Even if North Korea had threatened to initiate force against the United States, which it has not, Trump’s vow to “totally destroy North Korea” would still be monstrous because that action would not be defensive. If one must use force in self-defense, one may use only the force necessary to end the threat. Instead of pledging to engage in defense, Trump was threatening to commit an horrifying war crime.

This, however, is an easy point to score against Trump. Anyone who gives his remarks on North Korea a moment’s thought can see how wrong it is. Aside from that, Trump’s address contained more-subtle depravities, for instance, his obsession with sovereignty. He used the word 21 times, tediously returning to the point time and again.

Why the obsession? First off, it fits with his “America First” theme, that is, his aggrieved-nation shtick. Trump fancies himself the savior of a pitiful America taken advantage of at every turn by every nation and multinational bureaucracy on earth. His solution to this imagined victimization — he ignores the U.S. government’s imperial domination — lies in his promised restoration of sovereignty.

But what does he mean by sovereignty? If it were simply shorthand for mutual nonintervention among nations, we might forgive his syntax. If he were merely railing against the NATO, WTO, NAFTA, IMF, and World Bank bureaucracies, that would be fine. But judging by his domestic proclivities, that is not what he means. If you look closely, you see that sovereignty is really shorthand for a frighteningly powerful government that claims to act in the name of its people — us — rather than leaving us free to act for ourselves. Trump apparently believes that we — as individuals, as opposed to “the people” conceived as a corporate entity — are incapable of acting (wisely) for ourselves. We need the state — headed by him — to look after us.

To Trump, the government is the people’s (the country’s) brain, at least if he is in charge. The government thinks and acts on our behalf. For Trump, we are free and sovereign if “our” government, independent of outside influence, does what “our” wise leaders deem to be in our interest. This is coercive collectivism because it clashes with individual liberty and the consensual social cooperation liberty itself generates. According to this view, such cooperation is impossible without the state. Thus Trumpism (if I am not giving him too much credit for having a philosophy) is the antithesis of liberalism, or what today is known as libertarianism. One can see this in Trump’s repeated calls for “sacrifice” for one’s country.

Trumpism resembles corporate statism, or corporatism. (This word did not previously mean rule by business corporations.) It is not literally Mussolini’s nationalist-syndicalist one-party fascism, but it has a similar unpleasant odor. Trump’s vision is of a de facto corporatism that maintains the traditional forms of democratic representation. (Trump’s UN speech had the usual boilerplate about the wonderful U.S. Constitution.) But his goal is the same as the original: having the state produce and maintain the nation’s unity by defining the people’s interests from the top and mediating among contending groups, with the government having the final say. The individual-level bargaining that would occur in a freed society is to be subordinate to the government — which, again, is conceived as the ultimate authority acting for the people’s well-being. Trumpism is an Americanized fascism complete with a more or less veiled authoritarianism. Other politicians share this view of the state, but no one else of prominence takes it so far and parades it so explicitly. And no one has so consciously wedded it to a cult personality.

Sure, Trump says: “In America, the people govern, the people rule, and the people are sovereign. I was elected not to take power, but to give power to the American people, where it belongs.” But that cliched claptrap cannot withstand scrutiny. “The people” neither govern nor rule. Only persons act, and only certain persons rule. There is no way everyone can rule — unless all people individually rule their own lives. That’s not what Trump means.

If all people ruled their own lives, Trump would have no power to negotiate trade deals with other governments. I would make trade policy for me; you would make trade policy for you; and so on. Trump would have no role. Likewise, he would have no power to forbid us from hiring, renting to, or hosting people who enter the country without government permission. That is, immigration would be none of his business.

The question, then, is whose sovereignty? Trump means national sovereignty, a coercively collectivist notion that justifies subordinating the individual to the state. Liberalism (in the original sense) means individual sovereignty and peaceful cooperation. Trump objects to distant multinational bureaucracies telling Americans what they can’t do, but has no problem with American bureaucracies telling Americans what they can’t do. Yet the nationality and location of bureaucrats are not essential concerns for those who value individual freedom and autonomy.

Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State, which is the conscience and universal will of man in his historical existence. It is opposed to classical Liberalism, which arose from the necessity of reacting against absolutism, and which brought its historical purpose to an end when the State was transformed into the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual. And if liberty is to be the attribute of the real man, and not of that abstract puppet envisaged by individualistic Liberalism, Fascism is for liberty. And for the only liberty which can be a real thing, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State. Therefore, for the Fascist, everything is in the State, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has value, outside the State. In this sense Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State, the synthesis and unity of all values, interprets, develops and gives strength to the whole life of the people.

That strong leader, of course, was Mussolini, the ruler of fascist Italy, whose philosophy is eerily consistent with Trump’s way of governing. (Mussolini, like Trump, denounced “socialism.”) Like Mussolini’s, Trump’s way of governing is not an advance toward liberty but a regression toward slavery.

TGIF: Trump’s Americanized Fascism was first posted on September 22, 2017 at 8:28 am.]]>https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/sheldon/tgif-trumps-americanized-fascism/feed/0The US-Russian Race for Euphrates Threatens to Become a US-Russian Clashhttps://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/us-russian-race-euphrates-threatens-become-us-russian-clash/
https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/us-russian-race-euphrates-threatens-become-us-russian-clash/#commentsThu, 21 Sep 2017 21:18:34 +0000https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/?p=12179The US-Russian Race for Euphrates Threatens to Become a US-Russian Clash was first posted on September 21, 2017 at 4:18 pm.]]>Just two weeks into its second stage the race for the Euphrates in Syria is reaching a boiling point. The Russian military has just accused the US-backed SDF, or the US itself, of shelling Syrian army units with whom Russian special forces are known to be embedded:

Massive fire from mortars and rocket artillery was opened twice on the Syrian troops from the areas on the eastern shore of Euphrates where the SDF fighters and servicemen of US special forces are based, [Russian defense ministry spokesman] Konashenkov said.

US Marine artillerymen are known to support SDF forces, albeit so far there is only evidence of them operating howitzers, but not mortars or rocket artillery that Russians say were used here. Assuming these bombardments took place they would have almost certainly been the work of SDF fighters — with the ex-rebel, Arab component being the likeliest culprit (the Kurds have a relationship with the Russians they would be foolish to endanger) — but the Russians are clearly allowing the possibility that nearby US special forces had something to do with them.

US artillery in Syria

Moreover the Russian Ministry of Defense has warned it is willing to fire back should the Syrian army come under attack again:

Russia warned the United States it would target areas in Syria where U.S. special forces and U.S.-backed militia were operating if its own forces came under fire from them, which it said on Thursday had already happened twice.

“A representative of the U.S. military command in Al Udeid (the U.S. operations center in Qatar) was told in no uncertain terms that any attempts to open fire from areas where SDF fighters are located would be quickly shut down,” Major-General Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

“Fire points in those areas will be immediately suppressed with all military means.”

So to recap, just in the last week we’ve heard:

An ex-rebel, Arab SDF commander, Abu Khawla, vowing he would stop the Syrian army from crossing the Euphrates

Russia accusing the SDF and US of shelling Syrian army positions with Russian soldiers presumably nearby

At an early stage the race for Euphrates is already threatening to devolve into clashes between the Kurds, Syrian army, Americans and the Russians. Given the much more combative posture of the Russians this time around this could escalate even beyond the May-June height of the crisis around al-Tanf in southern Syria which saw repeated bombing attacks against the Syrians by the US air force. (Recall that the US already shot down a Syrian jet over the Euphrates this June, sparking a warning from the Russians US planes would henceforth be illuminated as targets.)

US/SDF and Syrian/Russian positions are just a few miles from each other at Deir Ezzor

The US-Kurdish camp would do well to look into the possibility that ex-FSA fighters, such as Abu Khawla, may try to provoke a fight with the Syrian army, and draw the SDF and US into it. Until the rebel-ISIS split of 2014, when they were forced to seek refuge in the Kurdish-held north, these fighters would have been found fighting the Syrian army and may be eager to renew that fight.

After all, if we’re going to have a WW3 it would be nice if it broke out over slightly better reasons than a vendetta of former battlefield allies of ISIS.

The US-Russian Race for Euphrates Threatens to Become a US-Russian Clash was first posted on September 21, 2017 at 4:18 pm.]]>https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/us-russian-race-euphrates-threatens-become-us-russian-clash/feed/3When the State Tries the State, the State Always Winshttps://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/state-tries-state-state-always-wins/
https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/state-tries-state-state-always-wins/#commentsThu, 21 Sep 2017 15:56:28 +0000https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/?p=12153When the State Tries the State, the State Always Wins was first posted on September 21, 2017 at 10:56 am.]]>On Friday, Jason Stockley was acquitted of first-degree murder charges stemming from the 2011 shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith. Many of the people of St. Louis have responded to the verdict with protests that have turned violent.

Mr. Stockley, who was a St. Louis police officer at the time of the shooting, was accused of premeditated murder almost six years after a high-speed chase ended with his shooting Mr. Smith, a black man, to death. Prosecutors further contended that Mr. Stockley planted a gun on the victim to make the shooting appear justified. Additionally, dash cam footage during the chase records Mr. Stockley declaring to his partner that he was “killing this [expletive], don’t you know it.”

Mr. Stockley waived his right to a trial by jury, instead receiving what is called a bench trial; that is, a trial heard and decided on solely by a judge. This judge took a month to hand down his verdict, and the 30-page ruling is certainly an interesting read.

Regardless of any personal feelings or opinions I might have about the case, I think we can all agree that the not-guilty verdict is hardly surprising. Indeed, in the last four months alone, in addition to Mr. Stockley, officers in Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Wisconsin were all acquitted of charges relating to shooting deaths they were involved in.

Rather than dwelling on the racial implications of these cases—implications that are numerous and heartbreaking and that I am in no way qualified to expound upon—I’d like to talk about the problems inherent in relying upon the State to police itself.

We Have Investigated Ourselves and Found We Have Done Nothing Wrong

The first problem we run into while relying on the criminal justice system—of which the police are apart—to constrain the behavior of the police is getting them to admit that anything was done wrong in the first place.

It’s pretty much impossible to know exactly how many people are killed by the police in any given time period because, for whatever reason, departments aren’t actually required to report these statistics. We can reasonably estimate, though, that between 2005 and 2014, it’s somewhere around 10,000. (I got this number by using statistics from here, assumed the numbers were consistent throughout those nine years, and then did a little simple math. In fairness, I might be erring high. There’s just not a good way to know.)

Let’s give some benefit of the doubt, and say that fully 98 percent of these killings were justified. That still leaves around 200 deaths that were not justified. Even if we’re really nice and say 99 percent were justified, we’re still left with 100 unjustified deaths. And yet, in that time frame, only 48 on-duty officers were charged with murder or manslaughter relating to those deaths.

Let me reiterate that: out of approximately 10,000 deaths, only 48 led to any charges.

This, I have to believe, is because we rely on the police to investigate themselves. If you can think of any profession, other than those involved in criminal justice, that is allowed to be the sole arbiter in whether or not its members have done something illegal, please tell me, because I can’t think of one.

So we have the police investigating themselves, then handing off their findings to prosecutors, who rely on said police for their own work, to decide whether or not anyone is to be held accountable under the law, which the selfsame police enforce. Do you see how this is problematic?

The Strong Arm of the Executive Branch

So, we’ve established that it is, to put it mildly, difficult for police officers to even be charged with a crime, any crime, involving a death at their hands. Assuming charges are even brought, it’s even more of a challenge to get a conviction.

This could be for a few reasons. Judges and juries tend to give police officers every benefit of the doubt when it comes to the use of deadly force. To be fair, many of these instances come from split-second decisions made in the heat of the moment. That said, police training seems to skew significantly toward how to use one’s weapon as opposed to when to use it.

The thing is, the police are the strong arm of the executive branch of government—the literal boots on the ground. They are, allegedly, the only thing standing between civilized society and crime-ridden chaos. This common attitude—that the police are our saviors—grants them astonishing latitude when it comes to the manner in which they enforce laws.

Combine this with the distinct lack of willingness by police to investigate themselves to the same standard that they investigate “civilian” suspects, the tendency of prosecutors not to want to alienate their main, and often sole, source of evidence in their cases, and the strong legal precedent of prior police acquittals, and you get the perfect situation for no one to be held accountable for wrongful deaths.

Even when there is a wealth of evidence of police wrongdoing, the attitudes and circumstances outlined above almost always prove insurmountable.

Separation of Cop and State

If we continue to work under the assumption that, in our timeframe, our estimated 100 unjustifiable deaths lead to only 48 people charged and 13 convictions of any sort, that is an appalling conviction rate. That would be bad enough to get you run out of any district attorney’s office if the accused were anyone other than police officers. This suggests that something different is needed.

The most immediately viable solution would be the establishment of a completely separate criminal justice system that concerns itself solely with the behavior of the traditional one.

We’ve already seen steps toward this taken with the establishment of citizen review boards in various cities around the nation, but I submit that these are not enough. In most instances, these boards are strictly limited in their scope of influence with restrictions placed on who may make complaints and what sort of complaints are to be under their purview. What I’m suggesting is something entirely different.

While I have no doubts that police and prosecutorial misconduct have been a widespread problem for, well, ever, never has the evidence of it been so readily available to the general public. The statistics I’ve cited make it clear that the current criminal justice system is incapable of policing itself. This separate criminal justice system must be entirely that: separate. There must be no overlap between the two, because once there is, conflict of interest takes over, and we will continue to see gross miscarriages of justice.

And though I’d love to see privatized alternatives to our existing criminal justice system, that sort of request is a huge one. The criminal justice system for the criminal justice system suggestion is more modest and more immediately implementable. And if the last four months have taught us anything, it’s that immediate solutions are what’s needed.

When the State Tries the State, the State Always Wins was first posted on September 21, 2017 at 10:56 am.]]>https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/state-tries-state-state-always-wins/feed/1National-Security State: The Worst Mistake in US Historyhttps://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/national-security-state-worst-mistake-us-history/
https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/national-security-state-worst-mistake-us-history/#commentsThu, 21 Sep 2017 15:39:06 +0000https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/?p=12156National-Security State: The Worst Mistake in US History was first posted on September 21, 2017 at 10:39 am.]]>The worst mistake in U.S. history was the conversion after World War II of the U.S. government from a constitutional, limited-government republic to a national-security state. Nothing has done more to warp and distort the conscience, principles, and values of the American people, including those who serve in the U.S. military.

A good example of how the national-security state has adversely affected the thinking of U.S. soldiers was reflected in an op-ed entitled “What We’re Fighting For” that appeared in the February 10, 2017, issue of the New York Times. Authored by an Iraq War veteran named Phil Klay, the article demonstrates perfectly what the national-security state has done to soldiers and others and why it is so imperative for the American people to restore a constitutional republic to our land.

Klay begins his op-ed by extolling the exploits of another U.S. Marine, First Lt. Brian Chontosh, who, displaying great bravery, succeeded in killing approximately two dozen Iraqis in a fierce firefight during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Klay writes,

When I was a new Marine, just entering the Corps, this story from the Iraq invasion defined heroism for me. It’s a perfect image of war for inspiring new officer candidates, right in line with youthful notions of what war is and what kind of courage it takes — physical courage, full stop.

Klay then proceeds to tell a story about an event he witnessed when he was deployed to Iraq in 2007. After doctors failed to save the life of a Marine who had been shot by an Iraqi sniper, those same doctors proceeded to treat and save the life of the sniper, who himself had been shot by U.S. troops. Klay used the story to point out the virtuous manner in which U.S. forces carried out their military mission in Iraq.

National-Security State: The Worst Mistake in US History was first posted on September 21, 2017 at 10:39 am.]]>https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/national-security-state-worst-mistake-us-history/feed/1Cynical Hawks Exploit North Korea Crisis to Torpedo Iran Agreementhttps://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/cynical-hawks-exploit-north-korea-crisis-torpedo-iran-agreement/
https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/cynical-hawks-exploit-north-korea-crisis-torpedo-iran-agreement/#commentsThu, 21 Sep 2017 14:15:20 +0000https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/?p=12143Cynical Hawks Exploit North Korea Crisis to Torpedo Iran Agreement was first posted on September 21, 2017 at 9:15 am.]]>Donald Trump’s speech to the UN General Assembly underscored his intention to adopt highly confrontational policies toward both North Korea and Iran. He threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea in the event of war and re-emphasized Washington’s long-standing determination to compel Pyongyang to renounce its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The president scorned Iran as “an economically depleted rogue state” and described the current multilateral nuclear agreement with Tehran as “an embarrassment” to the United States. If Trump is not merely engaging in bombast, Washington appears to be ginning-up two major foreign policy crises simultaneously.

As I discuss in a new article in the National Interest Online, administration officials and hawks throughout the U.S. foreign policy community increasingly link the issues involving the two countries. Specifically, they seek to use the surge of tensions surrounding Pyongyang’s behavior to scuttle the P5+1 agreement, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), that President Obama and other international leaders negotiated to place limits on Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Hawks contend that their goal is to “renegotiate” the JCPOA and produce a new agreement that would put greater restraints on Iran. However, statements past and present from leading neoconservative militants such as former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, Foreign Policy Institute scholar Joshua Muravchik, and Colonel Ralph Peters, the former commander of U.S. forces in Okinawa, intensify suspicions that the real goal is forcible regime change.

Those individuals and their ideological allies were in the forefront of the campaign that lured the United States into the disastrous regime-change war in Iraq, and apparently they want a second crusade against a Middle East regime.

The attack on the JCPOA suffers from one embarrassing difficulty: despite the allegations of UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and other Trump administration officials, the bulk of the evidence indicates that Iran has complied with its obligations under the agreement. President Trump and his advisers must resort to expressing complaints that Tehran is violating “the spirit” of the accord. That is an extremely lame argument. A key reason why nations spell out the binding aspects of an agreement through written provisions rather than relying on oral comments and handshakes is that disagreements about the spirit or intentions could be endless.

An increasingly popular line of argument among proponents of a militant policy toward Tehran is that North Korea’s behavior is a harbinger of what the United States will face regarding Iran, if Washington does not harden its approach. Hawks openlyexcoriate Bill Clinton for concluding the 1994 nuclear agreement with North Korea. Clinton’s naïve decision, they argue, enabled Pyongyang to flout the so-called restraints on its nuclear program, and we now face a much worse situation than we did two decades ago. They emphasize that U.S. leaders must not make the same errorby adhering to a similar, fatally flawed, agreement with Iran.

Using North Korea’s conduct as an excuse to trash the nuclear agreement with Iran is dangerous ploy. The alternative to the JCPOA is not “a better agreement.” Both Tehran and the other members of the P5+1 (Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China) have all made it clear that they vehemently oppose reopening negotiations. The United States stands alone in taking the contrary stance. The real alternatives to the JCPOA are a renewed Iranian nuclear-weapons program and a subsequent U.S. war against Iran. The former would be distressing, the latter would be catastrophic.

Even venturing down that path underscores the broader problem with U.S. policy toward Iran. North Korea is an obnoxious little state, and its nuclear ambitions are worrisome, but the country has little significance beyond its immediate neighborhood. Matters are quite different with Iran. Like it or not, that country is a major diplomatic, military, and economic player throughout the Middle East and even into Central and Southwest Asia. As the principal representative of Islam’s Shia branch, Tehran exercises considerable influence in such countries as Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. Trying to isolate Iran has been—and will continue to be—an exercise in futility. And launching a military attack on that country would trigger another disastrous war in the Middle East with far-reaching and entirely negative consequences. The Trump administration needs to ignore the hawks and adopt a more sensible policy.

Cynical Hawks Exploit North Korea Crisis to Torpedo Iran Agreement was first posted on September 21, 2017 at 9:15 am.]]>https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/cynical-hawks-exploit-north-korea-crisis-torpedo-iran-agreement/feed/1US Sanctions “Against Venezuela” Are Actually Against US Citizenshttps://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/us-sanctions-venezuela-actually-us-citizens/
https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/us-sanctions-venezuela-actually-us-citizens/#commentsThu, 21 Sep 2017 13:53:34 +0000https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/?p=12133US Sanctions “Against Venezuela” Are Actually Against US Citizens was first posted on September 21, 2017 at 8:53 am.]]>After fifty years of imposing embargoes and other sanctions, the United States never managed to topple Cuba’s communist regime. After forty years of the same in Iran, the US met with similar amounts of success. Ongoing sanctions against North Korea have not toppled to regime there.

But, some people in Washington won’t let decades of failure dissuade them.

[T]he Protecting Against Tyranny and Responsible Imports Act, or the PATRIA Act … would target Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro after he stripped the country’s democratically elected national assembly of its power and authority. According to the bill, the proposed ban on imports would last until the assembly’s power is fully restored.

“The goal is to change the conduct, the character of the Venezuelan government under Maduro. I think the window is closing,” Coffman told the Washington Examiner. “They are dependent upon the export of oil really to fund their government, and without that, they can’t pay their security forces.”

Experience suggests there is little reason to believe that sanctions will cause the regime to give up in Venezuela. If the regime has less oil money with which to pay the military, the regime can always steal more from the average citizen to make up the difference. In other words, ordinary Venezuelans will suffer more in response to US sanctions.

Moreover, aggressive moves such as these against the Venezuelan regime have tended to only solidify support for the regime among its supporters. Both the current president Maduro, and his predecessor Hugo Chávez, were both successful in building support for themselves on a platform of opposing US meddling in Venezuelan political and economic institutions.

When the US threatens to intervene in local politics, this only strengthens the resolve and support of the regime’s supporters.

The US has already been acting in a reckless manner in this regard, as illustrated by President Donald Trump’s recent speculations about invading Venezuela to effect regime change. As noted by Daniel Politi at Slate, American threats directed at the Venezuelan regime do nothing to help the opposition:

Throughout his power grab that has accompanied Venezuela’s descent into chaos, Maduro has long warned the United States was planning to invade the country. Trump’s words seemed to play straight into his narrative, recalling a time when Washington saw Latin America as its backyard where it could intimidate governments into doing its bidding. “Maduro must be thrilled right now,” said Mark Feierstein, who was a senior aide on Venezuela to former president Barack Obama. “It’s hard to imagine a more damaging thing for Trump to say.”

Similarly, threatening Venezuela with more sanctions — something that may make the regime even more violent and desperate — do nothing to help the Venezuelan people in general, and only energize the regime’s base.

Coffman claims the sanctions would be lifted if the Venezuelan regime were to restore the prerogatives and power of the national legislature, which has essentially been disbanded by Maduro.

In recent months, the Venezuelan regime has rapidly become more dictatorial as forces loyal to Maduro have increasingly clamped down on opposition politicians and essentially ignored the results of recent elections that have brought many opposition leaders to power in the National Assembly.

The working philosophy here, apparently, is that the imposition of sanctions will force the Venezuelan regime to democratize in response. One would be hard pressed to find examples of similar tactics actually working, however.

More astute observers might also ask why — if Coffman is so committed to democracy — he hasn’t called for similar embargoes of Saudi Arabian oil. The Saudi regime, of course, has been a dictatorship ever since its founding, sponsors international terrorism, and tolerates no religious freedom or freedom of speech. The Saudi regime, for instance, routinely arrests critics of the regime, and the regime’s spokesman has outright denied that elections should be allowed in Saudi Arabia.

If human rights are of such pressing concern to the Congressman, its unclear why Venezuela is at the top of the sanctions list.

As with all Trade Sanctions, Americans Suffer

As with any discussion of sanctions, of course, we need not even consider the strategic futility of sanctions, or the morality of foreign regimes.

Far from being a matter only of concern to foreigners, US sanctions are built on the cornerstone of limiting the freedoms of Americans.

[S]upporting an embargo means supporting the government when it fines, prosecutes, and jails peaceful citizens who attempt to engage in truly free trade. Support for an embargo also requires support for a customs bureaucracy that spies on merchants and consumers, and the whole panoply of enforcement programs necessary to punish those who run afoul of the government’s arbitrary pronouncements on what kind of trade is acceptable, and what kind is verboten. Naturally, this is all paid for by the taxpayers…

At their heart, embargoes are nothing but a specific type of prohibition. Sometimes, the government imposes prohibitions on transactions involving certain goods, such as cannabis. Other times, the prohibition extends to all transactions with people in a certain place. The fundamentals are the same, however, in that they prohibit peaceful exchange, with heavy penalties for violators.

In the case of a new embargo against Venezuela, the effect would be to place prohibitions on American importers, and thus drive up prices for oil and energy for all Americans. Government bureaucrats would be dispatched to monitor private industry to make sure they don’t violate the prohibitions. Government agents will impose fines, and make arrests if necessary. The American government will become more powerful at the expense of American consumers and American taxpayers.

Indeed, this has already been going on with smaller-scale sanctions imposed by the Trump administration against Citgo oil refineries. Thanks to the sanctions, Citgo refineries in the US, which constitute four percent of American fuel capacity, and which employ American workers, are finding it more costly to obtain the oil they need for the refineries. Both domestic and foreign suppliers must scramble to work around the new regulations in order to avoid fines and lawsuits from government regulators who oversee trade. The effect of this will be to put pressure on more marginal employees and on more marginal operations, leading to layoffs and diminished refining capacity. Ultimately, it is Americans who will pay the price.

US Sanctions “Against Venezuela” Are Actually Against US Citizens was first posted on September 21, 2017 at 8:53 am.]]>https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/articles/us-sanctions-venezuela-actually-us-citizens/feed/1NPR Pretends FISA Court Is Not a Rubber Stamphttps://www.libertarianinstitute.org/justice/npr-pretends-fisa-court-not-rubber-stamp/
https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/justice/npr-pretends-fisa-court-not-rubber-stamp/#commentsThu, 21 Sep 2017 10:00:20 +0000https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/?p=12125NPR Pretends FISA Court Is Not a Rubber Stamp was first posted on September 21, 2017 at 5:00 am.]]>On Tuesday’s episode of Up First (9/19/2017), NPR briefly reported on the news that Paul Manafort, President Trump’s sometime campaign manager, had been subject to wiretapping, both during the campaign and after the election.

This is a big news story and NPR was certainly right to cover it. The problem lies in the way they covered it–with a predictable, but completely unjustified deference to the national security state.

Let’s take a quick look at what they said so you can see for yourself. The exchange begins right after a guest journalist explained, correctly, that the new report on Manafort’s wiretapping means that the Russia investigation (that is, the “Russia stuff”) is still alive and well. Here’s the relevant portion (emphasis added):

David Greene, Co-Host: Mary Louise, when you’re not hosting with us, you cover things like this ‘Russia stuff’, the investigation. Is this a big development?

Mary Louise Kelly, Co-Host: This is a big deal, yeah, I mean what leaps out at me are two quick things. One–the standard of evidence that investigators would have to get a FISA warrant from the special FISA court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance [Act] Court, to get a wiretap on the President’s campaign manager–that standard would be high. They must think they have something.

Now, you should also know that Mary Louise Kelly is NPR’s national security correspondent. This isn’t just some ancillary topic she’s being asked about because she happened to be hosting. In theory, this should be well within her area of expertise.

Given this, you would hope that she would be knowledgeable about the FISA Court. And, to be fair, she is right when she says that this is the court that would have to sign off on a warrant like this. But things go off the rails when she asserts that the standard of evidence required to get such a warrant would be high.

This assertion of high evidence standards is offered as a flat fact, but there are very good reasons to question it.

For one thing, the FISA Court faces little accountability or transparency. By design, the whole operation is shrouded in secrecy. That means egregious decisions could be made and no one in the public would know about it, unless the government decides to declassify it or a whistleblower leaks it. Needless to say, that doesn’t bode well for accountability.

Another structural issue with the FISA Court is that, unlike most aspects of the American justice system, it is not adversarial in nature. The Court hears the government’s argument for getting a warrant, but they don’t hear any counterarguments. This system would naturally give the court a bias toward approval, since the judges themselves are the only ones on hand to identify the flaws in the government’s arguments.

Given these factors, perhaps it is not surprising that the FISA Court almost never rejects one of the government’s requests. Over a 33-year period starting around the court’s creation, from 1979-2013, the court received some 33,900 requests from the government. During that time, it rejected 11. Not 1100, not 11,000, just 11–or 0.03%.

And things haven’t changed much since then. For the year of 2015, The Guardian reported that the court rejected 0 requests out of a total of 1,457 requests.

It’s possible that these incredible statistics slightly overstate the amount of rubber-stamping that gets carried out by the FISA Court. For instance, some requests are modified by the court without being formally denied–in 2015, that total came to 80, which was still a small portion of the overall total. We also have no good way to know how significant or trivial the modifications were.

Since the information is limited, we can’t say for certain exactly how perfunctory or meaningful the review process is. But when we consider the lopsided approval figures and the fact that the structure of the court is clearly tilted towards approval, the balance of the evidence seems to suggest that the FISA Court is not as skeptical or thorough as we might like.

All of which brings us back to our friends at NPR. Kelly suggested that the FISA Court’s alleged approval of a wiretap request showed that the government must have some compelling evidence against the target. But this argument is based on little more than faith. Everything else we can discern about the FISA Court actually points in the opposite direction–that the deck is stacked in favor of approval.

So the news that the FISA Court approved a wiretap may indeed mean that the government has put together a solid case. But based on the above, it might just mean that the government lawyer making the request had a pulse, and that’s all that was required.

In any case, it’s reckless and misleading for NPR to uncritically assert that the FISA Court is a rigorous process.

It also reminds us of the one bias you can reliably count on across all outlets in the mainstream media. NPR may dislike the Republicans and Fox may criticize the Democrats, but all of them agree that the US national security state is beyond reproach.